Capers in Cambridge...AND BEYOND...: Beyond Jerusalem . . . southward

On June 7, we made our trek east and south of Jerusalem. Again, a super experience!

Greetings friends (Brad here). We landed in Tel Aviv, Israel on June 4. We had about six days to travel before teaching a course at Israel College of the Bible (in Netanya). After a wonderful few days in Jerusalem, the Greens got in our rental car and headed south of Jerusalem for a few days. We had three main places we wanted to see: Qumran, Ein Gedi, and Masada. All three were wonderful.

Here we are exploring Qumran. Qumran is the location where a wandering shepherd boy discovered numerous Old Testament documents, preserved for almost 2000 years. That was in 1947--one of the most amazing biblical discoveries of the century, if not ever.

So, these first pictures are from Qumran, with various caves in most of the pictures behind us. Simply great.

These next pictures are from Ein-Gedi. Ein-Gedi is a beautiful national park, and is of interest in terms of the Bible, for here is a place where David was hiding from Saul. We hiked in about 20 minutes or so, the children had fun in the water, and then we hiked back out. A great time.

With the picture above and below, that is the Dead Sea in the background. A lot of fun.

The next pictures were taken at Masada. Masada was a mountain fortress of sorts, and was a place where certain Jews went when they were resisting the Romans in the first century. If you do not know the end of the story, I will not ruin it for you. But it is quite an experience to see this location. Very high and very hot!

You can walk up to the top, but because of the heat this day, they had closed the path. Hence, we had to get to the top via a cable car. A real shame.

After a lot of time in the heat and sun, we decided to head to the Dead Sea and get in the water. It was a blast. And it is true, it is very salty, and you really cannot sink. It was super.

Victoria and Caleb being very sweet.

Daniel enjoying the Dead Sea

Dianne and the children enjoying the Dead Sea

After leaving the Dead Sea, we grabbed a quick dinner (McDonalds!--the pickings were slim in the small town where we jumped in to the Dead Sea). We then headed to our accommodations in the evening. It was up in the mountains, and was one of the most unique accommodations of our travels. It had originally been a military compound of sorts. Then a kibbutz. Then vacation accommodations. A lot of fun.